Rajdeep (IET 17713): A New Rainfed Lowland High Yielding Rice Variety for Semideep Situation

In eastern India, more than 13.0 million ha of rice lands are affected by excess water and periodically suffer from flash floods and complete submergence. Most of the traditional and adapted rice varieties of this situation are low yielders. To overcome these problems the high yielding rice variety (HYV), Rajdeep (IET 17713) has been developed by Rice Research Station, Government of West Bengal, Chinsurah, Hooghly as high yielding rice variety for semideep water situation. Field experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of promising semideep water rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes under lowland situation during wet season of 2002-2013. Performance of Rajdeep, semideep water rice was better and therefore it was released. It is tolerant to sheath blight, sheath rot diseases and stem borer, leaf folder insect-pests. The high yielding semideep rice variety, Rajdeep exhibited superiority over national check (Sabita), regional check (Purnendu) and local check tested in different locations under All India Coordinated Rice Improvement Project (AICRIP) trials during kharif, 2002-2003 conducted by ICAR-Indian Institute of Rice Research, Hyderabed, India. This variety was also tested in multi-locational yield trials (2003-2013) along with check variety Swarna-Sub 1/ Bhudeb at different locations of West Bengal. After testing at national level as well as at state level, based on yield performance of the variety, the HYV semideep rice variety Rajdeep was released and notified by Government of India in the Gazette of India vide Notification No. S.O. 1007(E) on 30^th March, 2017.